


Astronomy

by LydiaBSlade



Series: Destination Unknown [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Military, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Arguments about mid-2000s politics, BenArmie AU, Break Up, Brief Hux/OMC, Descriptions of Military Weapons, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eventual Happy Ending, First Time Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Insomnia, Internalized Homophobia, Light Bondage, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Masturbation, Original Character Death(s), Possible Sexual Harassment, Reference to Injured Animal, Referenced Sexism, Referenced War Violence, Rimming, Switch/vers Kylux, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-05 17:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18833791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaBSlade/pseuds/LydiaBSlade
Summary: Ben just can’t do this anymore. Hux is fine with that. Totally fine.(Also featuring a Very Special Guest Appearance by Matt the Radar Technician.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For clarity: this fic is set in the fall of 2004 and Hux is starting his second year as a cadet. Ben/Kylo is an art student in NYC. 
> 
> Also, the angst is mostly in the first chapter and the porn is mostly in the second, so choose your own adventure! Please see detailed content warnings at the end of each chapter for additional information.

It starts with an argument about politics, which, afterwards, will make the entire episode feel particularly bewildering and unreal to Hux. Hux thinks of himself as mostly apolitical; it’s more professional, he feels. Military officers are supposed to remain detached from partisan politics.

It’s a Thursday afternoon in early September. “It’s crazy that we’re finally going to actually be able to vote for a new president,” Ben is saying.

“I’m still probably going to vote for Bush, though,” Hux says, only half-listening. He’s holding the receiver squeezed between his cheek and his shoulder as he flips through his robotics textbook, looking for the exercises he’s been assigned. 

“Are you kidding me?” Ben asks, incredulously. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“We’re in the middle of a war, in case you haven’t noticed,” Hux says, mildly annoyed. “Two wars, actually. I don’t think it makes any sense to switch commanders-in-chief right now.”

“So because the douchebag who’s currently in charge got us into two unnecessary wars, that means he needs to stay in charge forever?”

“It’s two unnecessary wars now?” Hux asks. “I thought it was only Iraq that was a war crime, or whatever. Now you’re mad about Afghanistan too?”

“I mean, there was one terrorist there. That doesn’t mean we need to take over their whole country forever.”

“The government of Afghanistan was harboring him and the rest of his organization,” Hux says. “Not to mention that they were imprisoning women in their homes and crushing gay men under loads of bricks. You’re okay with all of that?”

“Really?” Ben says. “Now you’re going to try to tell me that Bush invaded Afghanistan because he cared so much about what the Taliban were doing to gay men?”

“I didn’t say that,” Hux says, “but I’m not exactly mourning the Taliban’s demise, regardless. Anyway, why are we fighting about this? I get it, your parents met at an anti-war protest, your family doesn’t like the president, it’s fine. I just have a different opinion.”

“It’s not just about the war,” Ben says. “Didn’t you see the article I sent you? Kerry wants to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“I saw it.”

“So... what? That doesn’t matter to you?”

“I just don’t think it’s actually going to happen,” Hux says. “He’s not going to win, for one thing. Even if he does, once he gets into office, the generals are going to tell him that gay soldiers are a threat to national security, and he’s going to fold. And liberals are never going to fight for gay soldiers.”

“Why not? Everyone I know thinks the policy is awful.”

“You’re one to talk,” Hux says. “We had this debate in AP Government, remember? I mean, I didn’t say anything. But when the teacher asked you what you thought about the military banning gay people, you said it was fine by you.”

“I did not. I don’t remember that.”

“I remember it,” Hux says. “You said that you thought the current system of rounding up straight douchebags and sending them to faraway places to shoot at each other was great and that it didn’t need to change.”

“I guess I did say that,” Ben admits. “Okay, what can I say, I was an idiot in high school. I think by now I’ve been sufficiently punished for having a dumb opinion one time in AP Government.”

“Anyway,” Hux says, “conservatives don’t think gay soldiers should exist and liberals don’t care about soldiers in general, so the policy is never going to change. It is what it is.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Ben says incredulously. “You’re assuming that it’s never going to change, and you’re still willing to keep on hiding and sneaking around like this forever?”

“I’m not thrilled about it,” Hux says, “but there isn’t anything I can do to change it.”

“Yes, there is.”

“Don’t start that again. I’m not leaving West Point unless they kick me out.”

Ben sighs. “I wasn’t even going to say that. I was going to say that the very least you could do is vote for the guy who’s promised to change something.”

“Except that, like I said, I don’t think it’s actually going to happen. And besides, there are more important foreign-policy issues to consider.”

“This is what drives me crazy about you!” Ben barks. “I get that you’re in a difficult situation, I really do. But you actually _believe_ this bullshit they’re selling you. You don’t think that what’s happening to you is important. You don’t actually think you deserve to live a normal life.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is! It’s like - it’s like there’s this boot on your throat, and you can’t breathe, but instead of fighting you’re just lying there telling yourself, ‘this is fine, this is okay, I’m actually going to vote for this boot to be president because it’s so good at killing brown people!’”

Hux rolls his eyes, even though Ben can’t see him. “Yes, that’s right, you’ve got me all figured out,” he says acidly. “If you’ve quite finished shouting at me for today, I have homework to do.”

“I just don’t think I can do this anymore,” Ben says, so softly that Hux isn’t sure if he heard him correctly.

“You can’t do what anymore?” Hux asks, alarmed. 

“This,” Ben says, sounding suddenly near tears. “This whole thing, with you. I - I love you, Hux. I really do. But I can’t keep doing this forever. Like, not being able to be seen with you, all this sneaking around. It makes me feel like - like I’m choking. Like I want to hurt somebody. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Wait,” Hux says, more dumbfounded than anything, “are you breaking up with me?”

“I’m sorry,” Ben says. He takes a breath that sounds like a sob. “I’m - I’m really sorry, I know it’s shitty to do this, like, over the phone. I wanted to tell you last weekend, but I was so happy to see you - and I’d barely seen you all summer - I couldn’t do it - “

“Really?” Hux says, reaching for anger and finding only shock. “You tell me that you love me, and then you tell me that you want to break up with me?”

“Hux, I’ve been in love with you forever,” Ben says. “I was afraid to tell you before. But now it doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” Hux says. He sits there in a stunned silence for a moment. A sick feeling is creeping over him, settling under his skin. “Are you - are you sure?”

Ben sobs. “Yeah - I guess. I think so.”

Hux takes a deep breath. He sharpens his voice deliberately. “Well, I suppose if you’ve made up your mind, then there’s nothing more to say.”

“I guess not,” Ben says, his voice full of tears. “I - I - well, goodbye, I guess. I guess that’s it.”

Hux hangs up the phone without saying anything else. He sits staring blindly at the wall for a moment. Something sharp seems to be twisting in the pit of his stomach, as if he had accidentally swallowed something with jagged edges. Eventually, he opens his textbook and tries to focus on the reading for the next day, his vision blurring. 

***

It had been a difficult summer. When Hux returned to West Point for summer training at the end of June, he found to his dismay that the article about Ben’s “intimate portraits” had been not so much forgotten as metabolized, absorbed into the lingo and the jokes and the fabric of the place. Roberts in particular seemed to have decided to lean into it: whenever a convenient rock presented itself during a lull in training, he would strike one of a variety of cheesecake poses on it, while the rest of their platoon shrieked with laughter. 

When they weren’t in the field, the cadets slept in “the bays” - large metal Quonset huts, hot under the sun and frigid at night, lined with rows of narrow bunk beds. There was no privacy. Hux kept the camera that Ben had given him locked in his footlocker, with the incriminating memory card kept separately, zipped into his wallet. The wallet itself stayed on him at all times, in a ziplock bag to protect it from the rain. He slept with his hand on it, inside his sleeping bag, occasionally jerking awake in a panic to make sure it was still there. 

Hux only dared to actually look at his pictures of Ben occasionally, in the dead of night, with his sleeping bag zipped closed over his head to hide the light from the camera’s screen. After weeks apart, the images of Ben - on his knees, on his back, spreading his legs for the camera or sliding his mouth down over Hux’s cock - would hit Hux like the blast of heat from an open oven door. Too hot and half-suffocated inside his sleeping bag, he would click through the pictures left-handed as he slid his right hand guiltily into his shorts, trying not to make a sound. 

Hux had finally given in and gotten a cell phone during his summer break - a squat Nokia with a retractable antenna, which he had insisted on paying for out of the small monthly cadet stipend (Ben had offered to pay for it, but Hux had refused). At field training, however, it turned out that the only place where he could reliably get a signal was on top of a hill in the center of the camp called, unsurprisingly, Cell Phone Hill. As a result, most of his conversations with Ben had to take place while he was surrounded by other cadets, all of them shouting into their own phones at their families and girlfriends at home.

Mostly Hux just listened to Ben chatter - complaining about his parents, talking about his various art projects (he was doing “mixed media” now, which Hux always pictured as the sort of collages they had been assigned to make in elementary school), and about the part-time job that his mother had finally forced him to get as a condition of keeping his credit card. He was delivering takeout, apparently, from a place on Lexington Avenue called the Chirping Chicken.

“Sometimes this job is actually pretty entertaining,” Ben said cheerfully one evening. Hux had limped painfully up the hill to call him after coming back from a ten-mile ruck march in new boots that had nearly sheared the skin off the soles of his feet; he was in his gym shorts and rubber shower sandals, in spite of the abundant mosquitos, because he couldn’t bear to put on actual shoes. “Today when I was delivering food, this lady who was like my mom’s age opened the door and whistled at me. Then she asked me to turn around slowly, and when I did she stuck a twenty in the back pocket of my jeans.”

“Wonderful,” Hux said. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Oh, and I got a hundred-dollar tip from a drug dealer!”

“Why’d he give you that?” Hux asked, somewhat concerned.

“Because I stole some extra biscuits for him. Last time I brought him food he was going on and on about how much he loved our fried biscuits, and he gave me a really good tip, so this time I grabbed some extras for him and he upped it to a hundred!” 

“Oh,” Hux said, looking out into the dim purple evening. The sound of cicadas was rising around him. “Cool. How do you know he’s a drug dealer?”

“He pays cash for everything and his apartment always smells like pot. And he comes to the door in a purple velvet bathrobe most of the time; I feel like that’s a drug-dealer kind of bathrobe.”

“Maybe he’s just a West Point grad,” Hux said, slapping at a mosquito on his calf. “We get issued those.”

“Wait,” Ben said. “Purple velvet bathrobes? Seriously?”

“Yes! Lavender, really, with the school crest on them. They’re an official uniform item.”

“Oh my god,” Ben says. “Hux, you’ve been holding out on me. Is there any way you can take a picture of yourself wearing that and send it to me?”

“I didn’t bring it to the field with me,” Hux said. “They’re not very practical - they have to be dry-cleaned and the fabric is weird and slippery. They actually had to make a rule that upperclassmen aren’t allowed to haze plebes who are just in their bathrobes. Because apparently last summer some kid was up against the wall getting yelled at and his bathrobe fell open in front of everyone. He was like, ‘Uh... sergeant, can I make an adjustment?’”

“Hux, I know you keep telling me that West Point is a prestigious university, not the set of a fetish porn movie,” Ben said, “but I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that.”

During most of these calls, however, Ben seemed tense and unhappy. Mixed media and takeout chicken notwithstanding, he was bored, and lonely - Rey had gone to DC for a summer internship, and Ben’s half-hearted attempts to reunite with friends from high school had apparently been unsatisfying. He rattled around the city - wandering through museums, and working out at the Y on 92nd Street, and texting Hux abbreviated snippets of his sexual fantasies and complaints about the extreme stupidity of everyone he encountered. Hux rarely responded to these missives with more than a word or two. He found it irritating to have to press the buttons on his keypad multiple times for each letter, and he was constantly afraid that someone might be looking over his shoulder. 

As the weeks wore on, Ben became increasingly impatient with Hux’s reluctance to have him come up and visit. So far no one seemed to have connected the _Post_ ’s shirtless picture of Ben with the “friend” who sometimes turned up with Hux at football games or the Chinese buffet place; Mitaka had been discreet. But the article had been so relentlessly circulated and recirculated that Hux couldn’t imagine how Ben could possibly walk into the camp without being recognized. On several occasions, Hux found himself standing tensely on the hill as Ben tried to argue with him about this, keeping an eye on the cadets around him as he repeated, “I can’t,” and “It’s not a good idea,” in a monotone.

“I do have Saturday free,” Hux finally admitted in late July, after a late night of surreptitiously flipping through the pictures on his camera yet again. “But I can’t leave post and there’s nowhere for us to go here. There’s really no point.”

“I’ll see you Saturday,” Ben said immediately. 

On Saturday, Hux headed for the parking lot when his phone buzzed, his heart pounding. Ben was leaning against Han’s Jeep in a corner of the lot, looking unfairly good in a black T-shirt and jeans. Hux looked him up and down, wanting to shove him down on the grass and straddle him, bite his neck and grind against him until they were both panting and desperate.

“Hey,” Ben said, looking up with a grin. He pulled a large straw hat out of the back seat and waved it at Hux. “See? I brought this. So no one will recognize me.”

Hux laughed. “Really? That’s your disguise? A hat?”

“Well, and sunglasses.” He put on the hat. It had a checkered band with a ragged reddish feather stuck in it. “It’s hideous and it belongs to my dad. No one would expect me to wear it.”

“That’s worse than Superman’s disguise,” Hux said. “You look like a goth version of Huckleberry Finn.”

“Maybe that’s the look I’m going for.”

“Anyway,” Hux said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. I sleep in a glorified shipping container with thirty other guys. There’s literally nowhere we can go where we won’t immediately run into a thousand of my classmates.”

Ben shrugged. “I brought sandwiches,” he said, as if this solved anything. He gestured to the woodline. “Why don’t we go find somewhere to sit down and eat and we’ll figure it out?”

As soon as they were a few yards into the woods, Ben dropped the bag of sandwiches, grabbed Hux, and shoved him up against a tree with his hips, sliding his tongue into Hux’s mouth. Hux made a muffled noise, bringing his hands up to push Ben away, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Somehow his hands wound up on Ben’s chest instead, squeezing his pecs through his thin T-shirt, sliding around to feel the muscles shifting in his back. Hux was suddenly, hopelessly hard in his trousers, the wind knocked out of him, squirming frantically against Ben. The knots in the tree behind him dug into his back.

“I really missed you,” Ben said, breaking the kiss to mouth hotly at Hux’s ear. The sharp straw edges of his ridiculous hat, knocked sideways, scratched at Hux’s face. Ben squeezed Hux’s ass with both hands, lifting him half off the ground, rocking the hot bulge of his cock against Hux through his jeans. “Fuck, you feel good.”

Just then there was a noise behind them, and Hux shoved Ben away. A moment later, a group of cadets in their gym uniforms trooped by, carrying a pizza. A few of them glanced curiously at Ben, standing tensely near Hux in his unusual hat. One cadet, whom Hux vaguely recognized from physics class, waved cheerfully at Hux. After they had gone, Hux sagged against the tree. “This is what I mean,” he said. “There’s nowhere to go here.”

Ben sighed. “I guess it’ll be easier once the school year starts and you’re actually allowed to leave the base again.”

“Yes, definitely,” Hux said. “We’ll be able to just get a motel room on weekends where I can come meet you. So we won’t have to worry about anyone seeing us.”

“Yeah, sounds awesome,” said Ben drearily. “Hiding out in a cheap motel room in upstate New York - just what I’ve always wanted to do with my life.” 

“It’s only because of _your_ project, which I told you not to do,” Hux snapped. “It’s not my fault you never take me seriously.”

Ben half-shrugged, looking away. “Well, let’s eat,” he said after a moment. “I’m starving, anyway.”

They sat on a damp log at the top of the hill, eating their sandwiches mostly in silence. Ben scowled down through the trees at the view of Lake Popolopen below them. It was a clear, sunny day, and the lakeshore was crowded with cadets, sunbathing and playing volleyball and wading in the cold water in their black and grey gym clothes. Their voices drifted faintly up the hill.

“This place is like a sci-fi dystopia,” Ben said, waving his half-eaten sandwich at the cadets by the lake. “It’s like you’re breeding a race of identical _Übermenschen_ up here.”

Hux rolled his eyes, feeling on firmer ground now. “Not the Nazi comparisons again,” he said. “We were the ones who defeated the Nazis, remember?”

“I thought that was mostly the Russians, actually,” Ben said. “And it’s ‘we’ now? I had no idea that you were on the beaches of Normandy with my mom’s crazy father, but I guess now I understand why people keep thanking you for your service.”

Hux felt his face flush. “You know what I mean,” he said. “I’m not going to argue your point about the Russians, actually, but West Pointers played a key role. Eisenhower and MacArthur and Patton - “

“ - were all West Pointers, I know,” Ben said. “I sort of figured that out from the fact that you guys have a billion statues and halls and things named after them. Just don’t start trying to tell me that I need to be grateful to you guys for saving the Jews, or whatever. I _will_ throw this sandwich at you.”

“Yes, I know,” Hux said irritably. “You already blew up at me about that six months ago, you don’t need to rehash it now.”

“Okay, okay,” Ben said. “I’m not really comparing you guys to the Nazis, anyway. It’s just weird to see, like, the clone army on their day at the beach.”

“Yes, we all know that, the military is a conformist institution, you’re hardly the first person to take note of that,” Hux said. “And it’s not as if most of the cadets are thrilled about it either, being at the lake in their uniforms with hardly any girls around. They call it Gay Beach.”

“Urgh,” Ben said, “of course they do.”

Eventually they made their way back to the Jeep, which seemed to offer about as much privacy as they were likely to find. Hux looked at Ben’s profile in the driver’s seat, silhouetted against the brilliantly sunlit forest outside. He had tossed his hat into the back seat and reclined his chair most of the way. His eyes were half-closed; the breeze from the open window played in his hair. _I can’t kiss him,_ Hux thought, _someone will see us through the window, but maybe -_

He reached out to Ben, sliding his hand up Ben’s thigh, feeling the muscle under the denim. He ran his fingers over Ben’s zipper, stroking him teasingly. 

To his surprise, Ben grabbed his hand and held it, pulling it away from his fly. “Hux - I don’t want that,” Ben said, looking at him earnestly. “I mean, I do, but I don’t. Like, I don’t come up here just to get off, you know?”

“Okay,” Hux said, stung. “What do you want, then?”

“I want - I don’t know,” Ben said. “Not a handjob in the parking lot with you looking over your shoulder the whole time, anyway. It’s too depressing.”

“Fine,” Hux snapped, yanking his hand out of Ben’s grip. “Far be it from me to depress you with handjobs, in that case.”

“Hux, don’t be like that,” Ben said, reaching for him, trying to put an arm around his shoulders. Hux squirmed away towards the door. “You know I always want you. But not like this.”

***

Ben stopped asking to come up and visit after that. Hux told himself he was relieved that Ben had accepted the reality of the situation. 

Summer training was not entirely without its consolations, regardless. The hardware was much more interesting than it had been during basic, for one thing: they did “familiarization” training with mortars and machine guns and even a bazooka, which they fired at the rusted hulk of an old tank on a hill in the distance. And on their second day with the machine guns, they did a night fire with tracer rounds. The range cadre warned them sternly not to aim their tracer rounds up into the air over the hill, because the hot metal could land in the dry brush and start fires. But the cadets did it anyway, showering the night sky with points of red light, like fireworks for the Fourth of July.

They spent a week at Fort Knox with even heavier weapons: climbing on tanks (two cadets ended up in the hospital with broken fingers, having learned the hard way that a tank’s rooftop hatch is extremely heavy) and being “familiarized” with 50-caliber machine guns and sabot rounds (each cadet was allotted one to fire from the tanks’ main guns). Even with ear plugs in, the noise was nearly deafening. The reverberations from the sabot rounds in particular echoed through Hux’s body, from the soles of his feet to the pit of his stomach, as if he were inside the gun itself. 

At the 155-millimeter Howitzer range, Rose Tico was selected to fire an extra round at the end of the day - much to the male cadets’ annoyance - because she jumped up and down, waving her arms and shrieking, when the staff sergeant running the range asked for a volunteer. It seemed impossible that she would even be able to lift the hundred-pound shell. It looked nearly as large as she was. But somehow she was able not only to pick it up but to run with it, cradling it in her arms like a favorite toy.

The women’s rugby team was assigned to Hux’s company that summer, and more and more, he found himself sitting on the grass with them in the cool evenings, as they cleaned their rifles and polished their boots and played cards. It began with Mitaka, of course. He seemed to be friends with all of them, and somehow he had inveigled Hux into joining them. To his surprise, Hux found them significantly less boring than he had originally assumed that he would.

Most of their conversation consisted of complaints, a kind of endless chorus of bemused dissatisfaction that Hux found oddly soothing. Arrangements in the bays were an especially rich source of irritants. In particular, they were annoyed by the requirement that they shout “Female! Female!” continuously, whenever they were on the boys’ side of the bay. 

“It makes me feel like a medieval leper,” said Phasma, the star of the team. “I don’t know why they don’t just tie a cowbell around our necks and get it over with.”

“I’m just going to start shouting, ‘Tits and ass! Tits and ass!’ whenever I walk through the guys’ side,” Rose said. “It’s all they see, anyway.”

Rose was not on the women’s rugby team, although not for lack of trying. “She has the fighting spirit,” Phasma had explained to Hux once, patting Rose’s shoulder fondly. “She just needs to gain about fifty pounds.”

“And grow about a foot,” Rose had said gloomily. When they were standing, the top of her head barely reached Phasma’s shoulder. 

Back on the subject of the bays, Mitaka piped up: “I think they make you shout like that because they don’t want you to have to see the guys, like, doing the helicopter or something.”

“‘Doing the helicopter’?” Rose asked, raising her eyebrows at Mitaka. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mitaka flushed pink. “Nothing. I just mean, you know, anything embarrassing.”

“Oh no,” Phasma said, “you don’t get off that easily. What’s ‘the helicopter’?”

Mitaka looked to Hux for help. “Don’t look at me,” Hux said. “You brought it up, you explain it.”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “Explain yourself, Mitaka.”

“Oh fine,” Mitaka said, even redder now. “It’s when a guy is naked and he, like, waggles his hips so that his dick goes in a circle. Like a helicopter rotor.”

Phasma and Rose both laughed. “Really?” Rose said, looking at Hux. “Why do you _do_ that?”

“ _I_ don’t do that,” said Hux, affronted.

Phasma laughed harder. “Don’t worry,” she said, “no one would ever think you did.”

Another frequent topic of complaint was the location of the training schedules. The bulletin board with all the training information had been installed in the exact center of the bays, which also happened to be next to the men’s open showers. 

“So every time I want to find out when the next formation is, there’s always some guy screaming in the background because he’s naked,” Phasma said, exasperated. “As if I want to see their ugly dicks, anyway.”

“I complained to my squad leader about that,” Rose said. “But he just told me that I was a ‘leadership challenge’ and that he didn’t want to hear any more whining from me.”

Phasma snorted. “I don’t think you’re the one with the leadership challenges. Isn’t he the one who introduced himself to you by saying, ‘I understand that your bodies are different’?”

“Yeah, that was him,” Rose said gloomily. “And he must’ve learned that in health class or something, because there’s no way any actual woman would let him get within ten feet of her.”

Hux hadn’t said anything at the time, but during his week as team leader, he put in a work order and had the bulletin board moved to the wall next to the girls’ section of the bay. “You know, Hux,” Phasma said, when she saw him directing this operation, “when I first met you I just thought you were a massive tool. But sometimes you’re kind of all right.”

***

Now, the night after his disastrous conversation with Ben, Hux lies in bed and notes dispassionately that he can’t sleep. His brain seems to have entirely disengaged from the normal processes that allow him to do so. The pain in the pit of his stomach, which has been throbbing dully since he hung up on Ben, sharpens as the night drags on. He wonders if he might be developing appendicitis. 

This goes on for a week. Hux feels as if his mind is fraying: he’s perpetually light-headed, nauseous, unable to concentrate. The world looks burnt around the edges. 

He begins falling asleep in class, something which he has always been contemptuous of other cadets for doing. One of his instructors flings an eraser at him when his head bobs towards his desk. His “Fundamentals of Robotics” professor, who has always treated him with particular affection, comes over during a break to quietly hand him a bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans. 

During one of his sleepless nights, scrolling through random websites on his laptop, he comes across a news report about a small dog that had somehow managed to swallow a knife that was almost as long as its body. When its owners found it, the dog was alive, with no visible injuries, but apparently frozen in place - its brown eyes huge and frightened, its muscles trembling, trying to stand perfectly still to avoid jarring the knife inside it. At times, lying awake in bed, curled around the perpetual pain in his stomach, Hux finds himself thinking about that dog. 

***

After ten days, he goes to sick call, hoping to be referred to someone who can give him medication that will help him sleep. The nurse looks at him with concern. “When did this start?” she asks. “Did something stressful happen in your life?”

Hux hesitates, wondering how much he can tell her. “My girlfriend from high school broke up with me.”

“Oh, honey,” the nurse says, putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I know how bad that hurts. But, you know, we all go through it. Welcome to the 98% Club, right?”

Hux smiles thinly. It’s commonly-accepted wisdom that 98% of relationships between cadets and their high-school sweethearts end before the cadets graduate, but it had not previously occurred to Hux to think of himself as an example of that phenomenon. “I suppose.”

“I really don’t think you need medication,” she says. “But I’d like to get you an appointment with one of our counselors so that you can talk through what you’re experiencing.”

Hux’s lips tighten. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not? Going to see a counselor doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. It means that you’re trying to take care of yourself.”

“Because I would have to disclose it on my security clearance,” he says, annoyed. “I’m not going to have it on my record that I needed mental-health treatment.”

“It’s all completely confidential. And it won’t affect your eligibility for a security clearance.”

Hux doubts that. He also doesn’t believe that his conversations with the counselor will really be kept confidential; he’s fairly certain that there are all sorts of loopholes that allow military therapists to report what soldiers say to their commanders. And having to talk endlessly about his “girlfriend” sounds more exhausting than helpful. “If you say so,” he responds. “But I’m still not doing it.”

“Would you feel more comfortable talking to a chaplain?”

“Oh no,” says Hux, horrified. “That would be even worse.”

The nurse sighs. “Well,” she says, “I can work with you on some breathing exercises that might help you sleep.”

***

Mid-day on Saturday, Hux wakes up when Mitaka unexpectedly bangs the door open, his arms full of bags from the post exchange. “Sorry!” says Mitaka. “I didn’t realize you were still asleep.”

Hux shrugs, pulling his pillow up over his face. He’s discovered that he can only sleep soundly during the day, when it’s light out and he can hear people in the hallways. Earlier, he had fallen asleep listening to someone in another room faintly playing a country song - a woman singing, someone with a high, sad voice. Growing up in Manhattan, Hux had absorbed a vague general distaste for country music through a kind of cultural osmosis; Ben in particular had been performatively contemptuous of it, possibly because his father was apparently a fan. But in Hux’s present frame of mind there had been something pleasant about it. He makes a mental note to ask his neighbor for the album information.

“Hux?” Mitaka’s footsteps come closer to the bed. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Okay. You don’t normally sleep this late, that’s all.” He pauses. “Is Kylo coming up later?”

“No.”

“Oh. Tomorrow maybe? Or next weekend?”

“No.” Hux rolls over to glare at Mitaka, hoping that this will make him go away. 

Mitaka takes the hint and steps back, turning away to start unpacking his bags. After a moment, he asks hesitantly, “Did you guys have a fight or something?”

Hux puts the pillow back over his face, wondering if smothering himself will end this conversation. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Maybe you should call him.”

Hux sits up in bed. “Mitaka, I’m not asking for your advice.”

“Okay,” says Mitaka. “Well, I’m sure you guys will figure it out.” 

“Probably not,” Hux says shortly, lying down again and staring at the ceiling. 

Mitaka looks at him so sympathetically that Hux feels even more uncomfortably certain than usual that Mitaka knows exactly what has been going on with him and Ben. “You know what you should do?”

“I literally just told you that I’m not asking for your advice.”

“I wasn’t going to try to tell you what to do about Kylo,” Mitaka says, looking hurt. “I was just going to say, you should come back and join the Jewish choir again. We’ve got some fun trips coming up.”

“I’m still not Jewish and I still can’t sing.”

Mitaka shrugs. “As long as you can eat bagels and lip-synch, you’ll be fine,” he says. “I mean, don’t you ever want to get out of here?”

***

Sometimes in the dead of night when Hux is staring blearily at his laptop, he sees that Ben is online too; he feels a jolt of - something, like a small but painful electric shock, as he watches the little door icon open next to _Ky10_R3n_ . More than once, he’s started to type some sort of message, maybe just Ben’s name. _Ben. Hi. Why are you awake?_ But so far he’s always been able to make himself delete it and shut his laptop before he does anything stupid.

Mostly what stops him is the memory of Ben saying _I meant to tell you last weekend._ Apparently this was something he’d been planning for a while. 

Ben _had_ seemed tense, on edge, when he came to meet Hux at Grand Central Station over Labor Day, the first time they’d seen each other since the visit over the summer. He was standing on the platform when Hux saw him, his hands jammed into his pockets, frowning at the floor, one jittery foot tapping. Hux had expected to have to fend off some sort of embrace that might have looked suspicious to other West Pointers getting off the same train, but Ben just said, “Hey,” bumping Hux with his shoulder as they moved towards the subway turnstiles. All the way home, he remained curt, weirdly closed-off. But once they were alone in his room, he responded immediately when Hux reached for him, pushing Hux down on the bed, sliding his hands under Hux’s shirt, kissing him frantically. 

That night, Ben seemed to be having trouble sleeping - he shifted irritably from one position to another, repeatedly waking Hux up. During the nights that followed, he was quieter, but every time Hux woke up, Ben seemed to be awake too, lying stiffly beside Hux or sitting at his desk, staring at his laptop. 

Hux didn’t think much of it at the time - Ben had always been a light sleeper, and Hux assumed that this latest bout of insomnia was due to Ben’s intense anxiety about starting school. At some point during the summer, Ben had gone from being thrilled about the idea of art school to incessantly catastrophizing about failing at it. 

“You’re not going to fail,” Hux had said irritably during one of these conversations. “Why would you fail? They liked your stuff, you’ll do more stuff like that, it’ll be fine.”

“But that’s just it,” Ben had responded dolefully. “I can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I have to get better.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of going to school?” Hux had asked, exasperated. He had never had much patience for other people’s self-doubt. 

During their few days together, they went back to the beach. They rode the Cyclone - Hux gritting his teeth, determined not to scream, even though the old wooden rollercoaster vibrated so furiously that it made Hux feel as if he were being ground inside a giant pencil sharpener. 

They woke up early one morning to run the six-mike loop around the perimeter of Central Park and collapsed together afterwards onto the cool grass under a tree. Hux remembers staring out towards the city skyline, Ben’s head heavy on his thigh, both of them sweaty and aching in the building heat of the day.

Later that day Ben had thoroughly mortified Hux by dragging him to an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs (“How have you never heard of Robert Mapplethorpe? We have to go!”). In the gallery, Hux shuffled anxiously sideways past the photographs of erect cocks and men in bondage gear, feeling as if an alarm might go off if he looked directly at them. 

“You okay?” Ben asked, as Hux stared fixedly at a photograph of an orchid, which seemed relatively safe. “You kind of look like you’re having a stroke.”

“I’m just not used to looking at this sort of thing in public,” Hux hissed back at him.

“Hux, you’re so funny,” Ben said. “You’re the only person here who’s shocked by these pictures, I promise you. They’re from, like, thirty years ago. My mom loves them.”

“Your _mom_ likes this stuff?” 

Ben laughed. “Yeah, she came with me to this exhibit when it first opened. And she has a book of his photographs at home. I may have, um, spent a lot of time looking at that book when I hit puberty.”

“You looked at _that_ with your _mother_?” Hux whispered, gesturing in the general direction of a photograph of a man pissing into another man’s mouth. 

“It’s very beautifully composed,” Ben said solemnly. “The black and white tones are gorgeous. 

Hux shook his head. “Sometimes I think I’m lucky that I don’t have a close relationship with my family.”

Ben laughed again. “That’s too bad. I’d pay a lot of money to watch Brendol lose his shit in here.”

At home, they took full advantage of the fact that Ben’s parents were out of town for the weekend. Hux had enjoyed being able to be as loud as he wanted, on his hands and knees in Ben’s bed, crying out as Ben fucked him, Ben’s hips slapping against his ass. It had been so good.

They had even experimented with another of Ben’s fantasies, the one about being left tied to Hux’s bed with a toy inside him, kept ready for Hux to fuck him whenever he wanted. Ben’s new box spring didn’t have a convenient headboard to tie him to, but Hux tied his hands above his head anyway, slid the vibrator inside him, turned it on, and left the room. He wandered around the house, pretending to be oblivious to Ben’s gasps and sighs from the bedroom. Periodically he would go back in to tease Ben, to stroke his hair and fondle his balls and run his fingers lightly over Ben’s straining cock, while Ben squirmed and sobbed and begged for Hux to fuck him. Eventually, when Hux couldn’t stand it any longer, he ordered Ben to get up and bend over the bed, legs apart, so that Hux could pull the vibrator out and replace it with his cock.

And all that time, apparently, Ben had been thinking about how to tell Hux it was over. That thought twists through Hux, night after night, as he lies sleeplessly in his barracks-room bed. 

***

Ultimately Hux decides that, as much as it pains him to admit it, Mitaka might have a point - he does need to find some new way to escape. He returns to the Jewish choir periodically, where he awkwardly attempts to sing along with the medley of Hebrew and English songs. The food at the synagogue after practice is significantly better than in the mess hall, but watching Mitaka and Thanisson’s barely-concealed happiness together does nothing to improve Hux’s mood. 

More usefully, from Hux’s point of view, he tries out for the competitive pistol team and earns a spot, even though they normally prefer to accept only freshmen. Hux had never touched a gun - had barely even seen one in person outside of a museum - before basic training, but shooting has always come naturally to him. Even as a basic trainee, he had been able to zero his rifle and shoot expert on his first try. Now, learning to shoot well with a pistol, he finds that the ritual of controlling his breath, finding his sight picture, and aiming center-mass at the black paper target is possibly the only way to stop his mind from endlessly gnawing on itself. The trigger squeeze is almost an afterthought. 

Day after day at the pistol range, the team’s assistant coach seems to take a particular interest in Hux. He’s a tall, rangy staff sergeant in his mid-twenties, with dark eyes and a tanned face. The nametape on his uniform reads TRAVIS; Hux never learns his first name. When he stands at the back of the range, he has a way of restlessly shifting his lean hips that Hux finds inordinately distracting. 

Whenever Hux is on the firing line, Travis comes over frequently to adjust Hux’s shooting stance. He digs his thumbs into Hux’s tense shoulders to get him to relax them; he slides a finger under Hux’s jaw to tilt his chin up as Hux raises his pistol; he wraps his big hands around Hux’s hips to align Hux’s body more perfectly with the barrel of the weapon. On one memorable occasion, he slid a hand under Hux’s blouse, resting it on Hux’s chest, over his thin undershirt, ostensibly because he needed to feel how Hux’s diaphragm moved as he took aim. His hands are always hot; he smells like tobacco and sweat. 

Hux’s face burns whenever Travis touches him. It annoys him to be publicly corrected so often - he’s fairly certain that there are other people on the team who need much more help than he does - but at the same time he finds himself looking forward to it. As he sits in class he thinks about Travis’s hands on his hips, Travis’s deep voice in his ear. He realizes that he’s disappointed on days when Travis doesn’t deem him to be in need of correction. His shooting, however, is distinctly better without the distraction. 

At night, when he’s certain that Mitaka is sound asleep, he sometimes pictures himself back at the pistol range. With a mixture of humiliation and heat, he imagines Travis pulling him closer, telling him that he needs to be retrained, grinding against him from behind as his hands slide lower. In his fantasies those hot hands squeeze and fondle him through his trousers, unbuttoning his fly to draw out his aching cock, stroking him until he comes all over himself in front of his teammates. Sometimes, after he comes, he can sleep. 

One Saturday morning in mid-October, the team piles into the back of a truck to go to the rifle range, to diversify their training ahead of an upcoming match. The trees on either side of the road are brilliantly orange and scarlet in the sunlight. 

At the firing line, Hux collects his ammunition from the range safety and heads for the foxhole at the far left side of the range. He climbs down into it and begins arranging his firing position. The concrete lip of the foxhole is cold and slightly damp against his chest. A faint smell of gunpowder hangs in the crisp fall air. 

“We’re doing a dry fire first, to practice shooting fundamentals,” Travis says, dropping suddenly into Hux’s foxhole, behind him. “Put the live ammunition away for the moment. I’ll help you get squared away before the range goes hot.”

“I shot expert last time I was here, Sergeant,” Hux says tartly. He wants Travis’s hands on him again, but not badly enough to accept the implication that he doesn’t know what he’s doing with an M-16.

“Yeah?” Travis says, sounding deeply unimpressed. “When was that?”

“In July,” Hux admits. 

Travis laughs. “Been a while, then,” he says. “Anyway, I know you’re good. I’m here to help you get better. Get ready.”

His face hot, Hux slides an empty magazine into his rifle and props the weapon on the sandbags in front of the foxhole. The rifle’s handguards are cold and greasy. Travis steps up behind him, pressing the length of his body against Hux’s back, wrapping his warm hands around Hux’s as he minutely adjusts Hux’s grip on the weapon. 

“Slide the buttstock into your shoulder, get that good position,” Travis says in his ear. Hux squirms as the slight stubble on Travis’s chin brushes against the sensitive skin just behind his jaw. “Don’t let the magazine rest on the sandbags. It’ll make the weapon jam.”

“I know that,” Hux snaps, furious both at the condescending remark and at the way his body is reacting to the contact. If he moves just slightly, Travis’s groin will be pressed against his ass. He takes a deep breath and squints down the barrel of his rifle, trying to concentrate.

“Relax,” Travis drawls, his breath hot in Hux’s ear. “You can’t shoot well if you’re too tense.” He digs his fingers into Hux’s shoulders, then moves lower, massaging the muscles along Hux’s spine with his thumbs. Hux glances around anxiously, but they’re all the way at the far end of the range, and he doesn’t think anyone can see down into the foxhole. He swallows a whimper as Travis’s hands linger for a moment at the small of his back. “Breathe with me,” Travis says, pressing his chest firmly against Hux from behind. “First target’s coming up.”

Hux can barely focus on the target; the way Travis is pressed against him is not, in fact, helping him control his breathing. If he moves his hips just a fraction - 

Travis steps smoothly away from him as one of the range safety officers comes over. “Range is going hot,” he says, looking at them suspiciously. “Everything okay over here?”

“Good to go,” Travis says calmly, climbing out of the foxhole. Hux squeezes his eyes shut, trying to calm down, then reaches for the first of his loaded magazines.

***

Afterwards, as they’re getting off the truck, the team captain - a stubby, freckled first-classman named Jackson - pulls Hux aside. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yes, sure,” Hux says. “Is something wrong?”

“You tell me,” says Jackson. He hesitates, squinting up at Hux. “It’s just - I was up in the tower at the range and I think I saw Sergeant Travis rubbing your back before we started firing. It seemed pretty weird. What was that about?”

Hux bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, every nerve in his body lighting up with panic. “Er, he said he was trying to help me relax and control my breathing,” he says. “I guess it was kind of weird.”

Jackson looks at him sharply. “Has he done this before? Did he make you feel uncomfortable?”

“No - well, not exactly. I mean, it is kind of uncomfortable.”

“I’m happy to back you up if you want to file a formal complaint.”

“No, no,” Hux says miserably. The last thing he wants is to explain any of this to an investigator. “It’s - it isn’t that serious.”

“Hux, you don’t have to put up with a coach who makes you uncomfortable just because you’re new to the team,” Jackson says, with surprising gentleness. “I’ll talk to the head coach. Don’t worry, I won’t mention your name.”

“Thanks,” Hux says unhappily. His stomach is starting to cramp painfully again.

When he goes back to practice on Monday, Travis isn’t there. For the rest of the semester, Hux sees him occasionally around the base, but he never glances in Hux’s direction again.

***

Two weeks later, on a Thursday morning, Mitaka rushes up to Hux in the hallway outside his literature class. “Hey!” he says breathlessly. “Hux - did you hear - a Jewish lieutenant was just killed in Iraq. Someone who graduated just before we got here. His funeral is at the Jewish chapel today at 1600 and his family wants the choir to sing - can you come?”

“Yes, sure - I have class, but I’ll come as soon as I can.”

Hux goes to his afternoon classes in his dress uniform and jogs up the hill to the Jewish chapel as soon as his last class ends, arriving at the door sweaty and breathless. The chapel is packed - a crowd of cadets in various uniforms spills out of the sanctuary and into the anteroom. Several are crying. The choir is already in place on the stage. Hux looks around and decides that standing quietly in the back would probably be a better way to pay his respects than pushing through the mourners to add his questionable musical talents to the choir’s performance.

Near the entrance to the sanctuary, on an easel, is a large official photograph of a first-class cadet in full dress, smiling at the camera. He’s startlingly handsome - blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, with strong features and short sandy hair. He is, in fact, so square-jawed and clean-cut that he doesn’t look quite real; he looks more like an actor who might be cast as a war hero in a movie. Under the photograph, three lines of curly script read: 

_First Lieutenant Aaron Goldblum, 1980-2004_  
United States Military Academy Class of 2002  
Killed in Action, Basra, Iraq 

Hux looks down at his shoes. The choir is singing now.

In the silence after the last song, a stout older man - Aaron’s father, Hux realizes; they have the same distinctive nose and jawline - limps up to the stage to speak, leaning on a cane. Stiffly, he reads a few lines from a card clenched in his other hand. Aaron had been the captain of the swim team; he had double-majored in mathematics and Arabic; he had been an Eagle Scout. 

Looking up from the card, his father pauses. “You know, we never worried about Aaron,” he says slowly. On his square face is a look of pained amazement. “We never had to. He is - he was the kind of kid who just - he didn’t screw around: he always made the right choice. He always did the right thing. And, you know, that’s how he died. He was trying to do the right thing.”

His face seems to collapse in on itself. The rabbi reaches for his arm and gently helps him off the stage. 

The next speaker is a slight girl with long wavy dark hair - Aaron’s fiancée, Hux gathers from the murmurs around him. She’s wearing a short, ruffled black cocktail dress, with one shoulder bare, as if she had never been to a funeral before and had put on the only black dress she owned. She makes several attempts to say something into the microphone. “Aaron,” she says. “Aaron - “ Every time she tries to begin, she sobs. Eventually, she sets the microphone down, with a thunderous clatter of feedback, and puts her hands over her face. One of her friends comes to help her back to her seat. 

After the eulogies, the West Point commandant - a tall, gaunt brigadier general with sad deep-set eyes - rises to present Aaron’s posthumous Bronze Star Medal to his parents. A cadet in full dress reads the award citation. Apparently, Aaron’s platoon had been on patrol outside Basra when his Humvee hit a roadside bomb. A piece of shrapnel struck his femoral artery, but he still managed to pull two of his wounded soldiers out of the burning vehicle before he “succumbed to his injuries.”

Aaron’s parents stand stiffly, their faces impassive, through this recitation. Aaron’s father clutches at his wife’s shoulder as she accepts the medal from the commandant.

Later, Hux trails after the somber crowd of cadets as they walk down the hill from the synagogue to the cemetery. He spots Mitaka and walks faster to catch up with him. “Hey,” he says, tapping Mitaka’s shoulder. “Sorry I was late.”

Mitaka smiles at him. He looks tired. “It’s okay,” he says. “I think the family was happy with us anyway.” He tugs at Hux’s elbow meaningfully and they fall back a bit from the crowd. “Did you hear?” Mitaka whispers. “People are saying that Lieutenant Goldblum died because his unit wasn’t issued tourniquets. One of his soldiers tried to stop the bleeding with his hands, but it wasn’t enough.”

“Are you serious?” Hux whispers back. “How did they get sent out on a combat patrol without tourniquets?”

“I know! I mean, I have like three in our room just because they made us carry them around on our stupid ruck marches last summer. Like we really need them here.”

Hux stares straight ahead, thinking of Aaron’s smiling face on the easel - the Eagle Scout, the mathematics major, bleeding out by the side of the road because someone hadn’t thought to order a ten-dollar tourniquet. 

Down the hill, the cemetery grass is as green and manicured as a golf course. They have already cut a neat red hole for Aaron’s casket among the rows of older graves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> \- The story starts with Ben and Hux breaking up, which I know isn’t going to be what a lot of people want to read. There will be an unambiguously happy ending eventually, though. I promise!  
> \- Hux is a Republican (sorry). He and Ben fight about this. There is discussion of Hux's internalized homophobia.  
> \- Hux briefly references some of the Taliban’s atrocities while he and Ben are arguing about the war.  
> \- Hux suffers from insomnia and persistent stomach pain after the breakup and refuses mental-health treatment when it’s offered.  
> \- Reference to an injured animal: Hux sees a news story about a dog that swallowed a knife and compares it to himself, because he is Extra.  
> \- Possible Sexual Harassment/Brief Hux/OMC: Hux joins the pistol team and develops a crush on the assistant coach, who is very hands-on with him in ways that other people perceive as inappropriate. Nothing explicit happens between them (except in Hux’s fantasies) but the coach’s behavior is arguably an abuse of power. Separately, Ben gets a job delivering takeout and describes being hit on by one of his customers.  
> \- Sexism: Hux listens to Rose and Phasma talk about some of the BS they have to deal with as female cadets.  
> \- OMC Death/War Violence: Hux goes to the funeral of a young lieutenant who was killed by an IED in Iraq. There is discussion of how he was fatally wounded, but it’s not extremely graphic. There are references to blood in this context. Based on a true story, unfortunately (names and details changed).  
> \- Sex: no extended sex scenes but there are references to masturbation, Hux’s sexual fantasies, and his memories of having sex with Ben (switch/vers Kylux).
> 
> Additional note: Ben’s high-school comment about how he was fine with “sending straight douchebags off to faraway places to shoot at each other” is a paraphrase of something Dan Savage said about the DADT policy at around this time. I used to read Dan Savage’s column religiously in the Village Voice - like, in hard copy, because it was the Stone Age - when I was a teenager in NYC, and I decided Ben would’ve done the same.
> 
> Also, the purple velvet West Point bathrobes are an actual thing that I did not make up. Why West Point wants cadets to look like bargain-basement Hugh Hefners, I do not know, but Ben is correct that it would be a great look on Hux.


	2. Chapter 2

The day after the funeral is Friday: it’s Halloween weekend, and the Jewish choir is headed to Cornell. Hux goes along, despite being suspicious of Mitaka’s promise that it will be “super fun.” At Cornell, they perform a perfunctory concert at the Jewish hillel for an audience of a few polite undergraduates, and then rush to change into civilian clothes so that they can check out the parties on frat row. 

Hux realizes, to his annoyance, that he has forgotten to bring a change of shoes: he will have to wear his leather low-quarters all weekend. The soles of his shoes are still smeared reddish with dirt from the cemetery the day before. 

It’s starting to get dark outside as they walk up the hill, but the frat houses are lit up luridly - strobe lights and glowing plastic zombies and pounding music spilling out onto the lawns. Inside the first house, where someone in the choir apparently has a “really good buddy,” it’s dark except for a green light glowing through a fog machine. A student band is screaming through the smoke. 

Once Hux’s eyes adjust, he feels immediately out of place in his neat button-down shirt and slacks: most of the crowd on the dance floor seems to be at least half-heartedly in costume. “Shirtless with smears of fake blood” is a popular look for the guys. The music is so loud that Hux can feel it through the soles of his feet. 

He looks around. Mitaka seems to have disappeared with Thanisson already; the other cadets are making variously awkward attempts to join the dancing. Hux has no intention of doing likewise. He looks suspiciously at a large bowl of punch on a nearby table: he’s thirsty, but he feels fairly confident that it contains alcohol that he isn’t allowed to drink. 

He remembers suddenly how Ben had once laughed at him for turning down a beer from the Solos’ fridge. Ben almost never drank - “It messes with my head,” he had said, meaningfully - but he had thought it might help Hux relax.

“I can’t,” Hux had said at the time. “West Point is very strict about underage drinking.”

That had made Ben laugh. “They’re pretty strict about me sucking your cock, too, but that doesn’t seem to stop you.”

“I prefer to commit only one potentially career-ending violation of military law at a time, thanks,” Hux had retorted. 

One of the girls from the choir, a curly-haired soprano - Bethany something? - materializes suddenly at Hux’s elbow, holding out a cup of punch. “Hey!” she shouts, over the music. “Having fun?”

Hux shrugs. “It’s okay.”

“Have a drink!”

“Is there anything that doesn’t have alcohol in it?”

She looks confused for a moment, then reaches into her purse and pulls out a small bottle of cranberry juice. “You can have this if you want.”

Hux opens it and swigs it gratefully, then nearly chokes when he realizes it’s mixed with vodka. His throat burns. “What the hell,” he says angrily, handing it back.

She grins at him. “It’s juice! It’s healthy for you!”

“No thanks,” he says, walking away. He wonders if she gave him alcohol deliberately, in order to prevent him from reporting her or any of the other underage cadets for drinking. 

Looking up, he makes eye contact suddenly with a guy who looks vaguely familiar - one of the few students who had come to listen to their concert at the hillel, Hux realizes. He’s tall, built like a linebacker, but with an awkward, defensive hunch to his shoulders. He seems to be looking at Hux with interest through his thick glasses. When Hux catches his eye, he ducks his head, apparently embarrassed to be caught staring, and shuffles towards the door. 

Hux follows him out, moderately intrigued, and thoroughly uninterested in the party. The cool air and quiet on the porch is a relief after the sweaty, pounding darkness inside. “Hey,” he says. 

The guy is already down the stairs and heading for the road. He turns around, startled. “Hey,” he says, looking shyly at Hux. His glasses are so smudged it’s surprising that he can see at all. “I went to your concert.”

“I saw you at our concert.”

“You did?” For some reason this seems to embarrass him further. “You were really good.”

“I wasn’t, but thanks.” Hux gestures to the baggy jumpsuit the guy is wearing. “What are you supposed to be? A prisoner?”

“Oh! No, I was supposed to be - never mind, it’s stupid.” He looks at his feet. “Anyway, uh, are you going back to the party?” 

“I don’t think so,” Hux says. “It’s not really my thing. Where are you headed?”

“Just back to my room. I don’t usually - it’s not really my thing, either.”

“Okay. Do you know if there’s a water fountain or something around here? I’m really thirsty.”

“I have water in my room,” the guy says. “I mean - that sounds stupid - but, yeah. If you want. I have some.” He’s definitely blushing now. 

Hux looks at him in the moonlight. He really doesn’t look like Ben: for one thing, his thick hair is blond and curly, sticking out haphazardly in every direction. He’s bigger than Ben, softer-looking; he doesn’t quite have Ben’s angular, off-kilter beauty. And then there are the unfortunate glasses. But there’s something about the assertive jut of his crooked nose and the fullness of his lips that makes Hux remember being kissed. 

Also, Hux likes how broad his shoulders are. “That would be great,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m Hux, by the way.”

“Matt,” the guy says, shaking it. His hand is large and warm. “So, uh, West Point, right? Do you like it there?”

Hux shrugs, falling into step beside Matt as they walk towards his dorm. “You’re not really supposed to like it,” he says. “They try to make it suck for everyone, one way or another.”

“I’m sure it’s really hard,” Matt says earnestly. “Thank you. You know. For your service.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Hux says. “We’re just college students.” Matt seems to be opening his mouth to object. “What about you? You like Cornell?”

“I guess,” Matt says. “I’m a freshman, so, it’s - I don’t know. It’s a lot. Better than being home, though.”

“So where’s home for you?”

“Liberty.” Matt scowls in a way that reminds Hux very much of Ben. “It’s a shitty little town in the Catskills. A couple hours from here.”

Hux tries to think of a polite response. “I don’t think I’ve been there.”

“Nobody’s been there,” Matt says gloomily. “Or if they have, they left as fast as they could. It used to be a big resort town in, like, the 1940s, but now there’s nothing there. Except the prison. My dad works there.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Actually, you know what my town is famous for?”

“What’s that?”

“For this court case. It said that the Constitution protects everyone’s right to say that Liberty is a shitty town.”

Hux laughs. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Matt seems more animated now, talking rapidly. “This guy was driving through, and he got a speeding ticket. The whole place is a speed trap, they do it on purpose. Anyway, he paid it, but when he sent in the money, he wrote ‘fuck your shitty town’ on the top of it. Which, I totally agree. But they tried to arrest him for it! Some bullshit thing, like contempt or something.”

“And the court sided with him?”

“Yeah. The First Amendment. They were like, ‘the Founding Fathers wanted everyone to be able to say how shitty Liberty is.’” Matt sounds perversely proud of this. 

Hux smiles politely. 

“Anyway,” Matt says abruptly, “sorry. I talk too much about stupid bullshit sometimes. What about you? Where are you from? Probably somewhere cooler than Liberty.”

“I’m from New York City.”

“Really? Wow. Like, the actual city?”

“Yes. From Manhattan.”

“Wow,” Matt says again, looking sideways at Hux, big-eyed behind his glasses. “That’s so cool. I’ve only been there a few times, but I loved it. Like, the skyline and everything - it’s so beautiful. Do you miss it?”

“Not really,” Hux says. He briefly debates explaining his home situation to Matt and decides against it. “It’s like you said - West Point is a lot, but it’s better than being home.”

Matt pauses in front of a rambling old wooden house with sagging porches. “So, uh, this is me,” he says, looking hopefully at Hux. “Do you still want to come up?”

“Sure,” Hux says, following Matt up a creaking staircase. It occurs to him that he may have been misinterpreting the situation: it seems perfectly possible that Matt genuinely just wanted to offer him water and tell him facts about his tiny hometown. He wonders how one goes about making certain. Matt seems fairly harmless, but he looks like he could probably do a lot of damage if he got angry enough. 

Matt’s room is tiny, possibly a repurposed crawlspace under the roof - just barely large enough for a twin bed, a set of plastic shelves, and a mini-fridge with several cartons of ramen noodles stacked on it. There are Star Wars sheets on the unmade bed.

“Here, uh,” Matt says, opening the fridge, “whatever you want.”

Hux bends over to get a soda and feels Matt’s warm hand lightly stroke the small of his back, before he jerks it away. Hux smiles slightly. He is suddenly sure that he has not, in fact, been misinterpreting the situation. He straightens up, cracking open the can of soda and gulping it down. Matt’s eyes follow the line of his throat as he swallows. 

“What’s on your mind?” Hux asks, holding Matt’s gaze. 

“Your hair is a really pretty color,” Matt says, then flinches, as if he expects Hux to hit him. “Sorry - I know that sounds weird - I didn’t mean to make it weird - “

“It’s okay,” Hux says, setting down the soda and stepping closer to him. “It doesn’t have to be weird.” Their faces are inches apart now. Hux can smell the fruity, alcoholic scent of the punch on Matt’s breath. Matt blinks at him nervously through his glasses. Then he surges forward abruptly and kisses Hux, hard, his lips closed, slightly missing Hux’s mouth. 

“Sorry,” Matt says again, wretchedly, turning away and _thunking_ his fist solidly into the wall. “Sorry - “

“Stop apologizing,” Hux snaps, starting to lose patience. He reaches for Matt’s raised hand, wraps his fingers around Matt’s fist to stop him from punching the wall again. “And come here.” 

Matt turns towards him, hesitantly, and Hux takes the opportunity to step forward and kiss him, very lightly, slipping just the tip of his tongue into Matt’s open mouth. Matt makes a startled, pleased little sound. Then he grabs Hux’s shoulders with both hands and pushes him up against the wall, kissing him fiercely, sliding his tongue sloppily against Hux’s. 

_Now this is more like it,_ Hux thinks, deliriously. He runs his hands over Matt’s back, pleased to feel solid muscle under his hands. He squeezes Matt’s ass, pulls their hips together, and Matt groans into his mouth. Matt is already hard; he sounds almost as if he’s in pain.

“Oh shit,” Matt gasps, “oh shit, you feel _so_ good - fuck - can I - “

“Yeah,” Hux says, not sure exactly what he’s agreeing to, as Matt yanks at his shirt, pulling it up, then seems to change his mind as he grabs at Hux’s ass instead, squeezing and kneading it with both hands. He’s grinding frantically against Hux now, making little noises into Hux’s mouth. Hux squirms happily in his grip. He’s enjoying Matt’s eagerness and his big hands and the feeling of his cock, thick and hot, digging into Hux through the stupid jumpsuit. Even though Matt is nearly choking him with his tongue, mouthing inexpertly at his face as if he’s never kissed anyone before. 

“Mmmph - can I take this off you?” Hux asks, turning his head sideways to break the kiss, feeling for the zipper at the collar of Matt’s jumpsuit.

“What? Oh yeah, sure,” Matt says distractedly, sucking on the side of Hux’s neck. 

“Don’t leave any marks,” Hux says, although he isn’t sure if Matt hears him. He finds the zipper at Matt’s throat and pulls it down, pushing the jumpsuit down over his shoulders and working his hands inside it. Matt’s shoulders and chest are muscular, more defined than Hux had expected: Hux notes, half-resentfully, that Matt has the kind of powerlifter’s body that Hux has been trying unsuccessfully for years to acquire in the gym. Matt jerks against Hux with a groan as Hux’s thumb brushes his nipple.

“You like that?” Hux asks, pinching it lightly, feeling a shock of heat run through him as Matt squeezes his eyes shut and gasps for air. Hux had loved touching Ben’s chest, but it hadn’t seemed to do much of anything for Ben. Matt’s responsiveness is fun. 

“Yeah - _ah_ \- oh, fuck - “ Matt’s hips stutter against Hux as Hux pinches both of his nipples, experimentally, rolling them between his fingers. A second later, he goes rigid, groaning into Hux’s neck. “Fuck - oh, fuck!” 

Matt lets go of Hux and staggers backwards, his face bright red, his glasses hopelessly fogged. There’s a damp spot on the front of his jumpsuit. “Sorry,” he mutters, “fuck, I’m sorry.” He jerks the door open and darts past Hux into the hallway before Hux can respond.

Hux sits awkwardly on the bed to wait for him, halfway between feeling annoyed and wanting to laugh. Matt comes back several minutes later, shirtless, wearing a towel around his waist. The jumpsuit is in a ball under his arm. He hurls it into a corner, glancing sheepishly at Hux. His face is still flushed. “Sorry,” he says again.

“It’s fine,” Hux says, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. “Relax.” Matt takes a step towards him. “And take off that towel, I want to look at you.”

Matt obediently drops the towel, standing in front of Hux in just his glasses. Hux looks him over appreciatively, admiring the thickness of his arms and thighs, the divot of muscle over his hip, the way his big cock hangs heavy and soft against his thigh. He’s starting to get hard again as Hux examines him. 

“Come here,” Hux says. Matt sits down next to him on the bed, looking sideways at him. He strokes Hux’s cheek lightly with one big hand, then leans in to kiss him, not so frantically this time. Hux nibbles gently at Matt’s lower lip. 

Matt takes a shaky breath, then says, abruptly, “Can I blow you?”

“What? Sure, yeah,” Hux says, once again fighting the urge to laugh. It feels good, though, somehow - to be hiding in this tiny room, with this awkward, unexpected person. There’s a lightness in his chest, like a helium balloon gently lifting him. He strokes Matt’s thick hair. “How do you want to do it? Like this?”

“Oh - yeah, sure,” Matt says, kneeling heavily down on the floor. “Like this is good.” Hux spreads his legs to encourage Matt, who is now fumbling with his fly. He gets the button open, pulls the zipper down. Hux is getting hard, his cock pushing up against his cotton briefs, through his open fly. Matt touches it lightly with his fingertips. He outlines the shape of the head with his thumb, breathing hoarsely. 

“Go ahead,” Hux says, half breathless himself now, reaching into his briefs to get his cock out, stroking himself slowly in front of Matt’s face. Matt leans forward, pushing Hux’s hand away. He licks hesitantly at the head, then takes a deep breath and slides his lips over it, sucking hard. 

“Mmm, that’s good,” Hux says, leaning back, letting his hips twitch up into Matt’s mouth. Matt tries to take him deep, then immediately pulls away, coughing and gagging, as Hux’s cock hits the back of his throat. 

“Don’t - here.” Hux reaches for Matt’s hand, wrapping it around the shaft of his cock. “Just stroke it - and - yeah, like that.” Hux squeezes his eyes shut in pleasure as Matt tries again. He’s starting to get the hang of it, moving his lips and his hand up and down together, his mouth messy and wet and eager. “Oh - _fuck_ \- just like that.”

Hux strokes Matt’s hair compulsively, trying to distract himself, trying to hold out. He slides his hands over Matt’s hot face, down to his chest, pinching Matt’s nipples to make him jerk and groan around Hux’s cock. The sight of him, naked between Hux’s spread legs, and the sounds he’s making - 

Hux shoves at Matt’s shoulder frantically. “Matt - I’m going to come - “ 

Matt just _hmmms_ happily and sucks harder, like he wants it, like he can’t get enough - and Hux is finished, gasping and shivering as his cock jerks, unloading into Matt’s mouth. “Oh fuck,” he says, collapsing forward onto Matt, hugging his head, “oh - fuck, that was good.”

“Thank you,” Matt says very sincerely, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Hux laughs, still breathless. “What - what are you thanking me for?”

Matt doesn’t answer - he just climbs up onto the bed, pushing Hux down onto it. Hux is still dressed, mostly. Matt unbuttons Hux’s shirt, pulling it off of him, shoving his trousers and underwear towards his knees. He bumps his still-hard cock hopefully against Hux’s bare hip. 

Hux sits up briefly to toe off his shoes and hang his trousers neatly over the cartons of ramen on top of the mini-fridge. He lies back down with Matt, still in his socks - his feet get cold easily - and kisses him, tasting his come in Matt’s mouth, letting Matt rub that big cock against his thighs, his stomach. Matt is stroking his chest, his back, his ass, as if he never wants to stop touching Hux. He’s starting to make those pained sounds again, pushing his erection against Hux more desperately. 

Hux wriggles down the bed, wanting to get Matt’s chest within reach of his mouth, wanting to exploit this new discovery while he can. He licks his palm and closes his fist around Matt’s thick cock, stroking it slowly, while he works Matt’s sensitive nipples over with his tongue and his teeth and his other hand. It doesn’t take very long to bring Matt off again. Matt twitches and groans and clutches convulsively at Hux as his come spills hot through Hux’s fingers. 

The tiny room smells of both of them now, their sweat and the bleachy smell of semen. Matt is still trembling from his orgasm, pulling Hux back up to kiss him. Hux allows this, tiredly. 

“That was so good,” Matt says, eventually, wrapping his arms around Hux. “I - I’d never done that before.”

“Like - never done any of it?”

“Well - I’ve done some stuff, with girls, before. A girl. In high school. But it wasn’t - I couldn’t do it.”

Hux winces, thinking, _Another item to add to the laundry list of reasons why this was a terrible idea._ “I did wonder,” he says, somewhat muffled in Matt’s shoulder. 

“Was it okay?”

“It was good,” Hux says. “You were good. Really good, for your first time.” Matt’s arms tighten around him. “I should probably go, though.”

“Do you really have to leave?” Matt asks, sounding wounded. “We could order pizza. And, like, you can stay the night. If you want.”

Hux considers his options. If he goes back to the hillel, he’ll be sleeping on the floor in the midst of a roomful of cadets who will almost certainly be too drunk to wonder where he is if he doesn’t show up. As cramped as it is, Matt’s bed seems like a much more appealing choice. He tries not to think about the last time he spent the night in a twin bed with a boy who was also absurdly too large for it. 

“Sure,” Hux says. “Okay.”

***

In the morning, Hux gives into the temptation to see how Matt will react to having his cock sucked. He feels slightly more comfortable doing this now, knowing that Matt has never slept with anyone else. Matt, unsurprisingly, loves it, squirming and whimpering when Hux licks long strokes up his shaft, when Hux gently mouths at his balls, when Hux massages the sensitive spot behind them with his thumb. When Hux reaches up to pinch both of Matt’s nipples while simultaneously sucking as much of Matt’s cock into his mouth as he can, Matt shouts and thrashes so violently that Hux nearly bites him by accident. 

Afterwards, Hux heads back to the hillel, promising to return to Matt’s room in the evening. The Jewish choir has some sort of mandatory cultural tour during the day, but they have one more night before they drive back. And Hux is certainly willing to miss out on a second round of Cornell’s frat parties. 

He lets himself in quietly, hoping that everyone will still be asleep. Most of the choir is, in fact, still sprawled on the floor, looking like the aftermath of some sort of mass-casualty event. Bethany, however, is awake, standing by the kitchen table with a girl from the hillel, who is thoughtfully setting out bagels and cream cheese. A coffee pot is gurgling in the background.

Bethany smirks when she sees Hux. She looks entirely too alert and interested for this hour of the morning, Hux thinks. “Well, look who disappeared all night,” she says, grinning at him. “Who’s the special lady? Do we get to meet her?”

“No comment,” Hux says, flushing. She’s looking at his neck, he realizes, putting a hand over it self-consciously. Matt had left a distinctive suckmark there, he knows, but he had thought his collar would hide it. 

“You have to tell us!” she says excitedly, coming towards him. Her green eyes are very bright. “I want to know _all_ the details. And remember, you can’t lie!”

“Bethany,” one of the other cadets groans from the floor, “leave him alone. Don’t use his honor against him. And _shhhh_.”

***

“I could come visit you,” Matt says, not looking at him, as Hux is about to leave on Sunday morning. “Like - I don’t have a car right now, but I could maybe rent one. Or see if there’s a bus.”

Hux glances at him. He’s sitting up in bed, his Star Wars sheets pulled up around his waist; a cartoon version of the Millennium Falcon covers his crotch. His lips are still pink and puffy from sucking Hux’s cock earlier in the morning. He isn’t wearing his glasses, and his naked face looks especially vulnerable. 

“I don’t really think that’s a good idea,” Hux says. “You know - I’m not supposed to be doing this. I could get kicked out.”

“Oh, yeah,” Matt says, sounding defeated. “Right.” He hesitates for a moment, still not looking up. “Do you think - could I call you sometime?”

Hux considers this. He canceled his cell phone contract after breaking up with Ben, and he doesn’t want Matt calling his room. On the other hand - 

“You can message me,” Hux says. “I’ll write down my screenname for you, okay?”

“Okay,” Matt says, smiling at him. Against his better judgment, Hux steps towards the bed to kiss him goodbye.

***

Two weeks later, in Hux’s literature class, they are beginning the unit on British poetry. Hux is sitting in the back corner, only half paying attention. Poetry has never interested him; he regards it as sentimental and pretentious, as well as frequently incomprehensible - an affectation for unbearable people like Ben. But it’s a required class, even for engineering majors.

“Would anyone like to explain the historical background of this poem?” the teacher asks. The class is quiet. Hux looks at his shoes. 

“It’s about the Boer War,” the teacher says. His voice sounds sad. “A.E. Housman was gay.” Hux looks up, startled. The other cadets murmur uncomfortably. “He was in love with a male soldier who went off to fight in South Africa and was killed in combat; Housman mourned him for the rest of his life.”

Hux’s literature teacher is an active-duty major, a bulldog-faced military police officer. He has a thick Jersey accent and his desk is covered with photographs of his heavily made-up blond wife. If Hux had met him under other circumstances, Hux would never have suspected him of having any interest in poetry, and he certainly would never have thought him capable of empathizing with a gay British poet who was in love with a male soldier. 

Hux had glanced briefly at the poem the night before, because it was on the day’s syllabus; he hadn’t given it much thought. He reads it again now:

_The Wain upon the northern steep_  
_Descends and lifts away._  
_Oh I will lay me down and weep_  
_For bones in Africa._

_For pay and medals, name and rank,_  
_Things that he has not found,_  
_He hove the Cross to Heaven and sank_  
_The Pole Star underground._

_And now he does not even see_  
_Signs of the nadir roll_  
_At night over the ground where he_  
_Lies buried with the Pole._

Hux looks away from the page, his eyes suddenly stinging.

***

The night after Thanksgiving, Hux lies awake in bed; his insomnia seems to have returned with a vengeance. 

He had arrived at his father’s apartment the day before, not sure how he would be received; it’s the first time that he’s been home in more than a year. His father did seem startled to see him there when he came home from work, but was cautiously friendly. They exchanged awkward greetings, like colleagues meeting unexpectedly in an airport.

Thanksgiving lunch was a meal at a French bistro in the financial district, where Hux learned, to his surprise, that Brendol was apparently dating someone. The topic had never come up in their terse twice-monthly phone conversations.

Marguerite turned out to be a lawyer who specialized in international business: she was slender, with champagne-colored hair and the sort of perfectly made-up face that looks slightly unreal, as if it had been digitally altered. At lunch she politely inquired about West Point and seemed convincingly interested in Hux’s responses. Hux looked at his father, with his rumpled suit and the grizzled reddish stubble covering his chin, and wondered what someone like Marguerite could possibly see in him. 

At the end of the meal, Brendol announced that he and Marguerite would be leaving that evening for the Bahamas. Hux received the distinct impression that the announcement was as much of a surprise to Marguerite as it was to him: apparently Brendol had been just as discomfited as Hux by the idea of father and son spending a long weekend in the apartment together. 

Now, late at night, Hux shifts restlessly from one position in bed to another, unable to relax. He’s discovered that listening to music helps him fall asleep - Loretta Lynn has been a favorite ever since he heard his classmate playing her greatest hits through the wall - but at the moment it isn’t helping. He pulls off his headphones in disgust and stares at the ceiling. 

He wonders, briefly, what Matt is up to this weekend. Did he go back to the hometown he had been so happy to escape? Is he just as bored and frustrated as Hux is right now? Matt has messaged Hux several times since Halloween, but Hux has mostly responded noncommittally or not at all. He’s thought through numerous ways in which his encounter with Matt could have gone disastrously wrong - still could go wrong, if it turns out that someone from the choir saw him leave with Matt and is merely waiting for the information to become useful - and he has repeatedly resolved to be more disciplined in the future. 

Still. He would give almost anything to be able to teleport Matt into his bed right now.

_Or Ben._

Hux rolls over, clutching at a wad of blankets as he feels the familiar pulse of bruised longing. He’s been trying all day not to think about Thanksgiving last year - about sitting on Ben’s lap in the icy wind, licking the taste of salt off Ben’s fingers, feeling the heat of Ben’s body against his back. 

Hux hasn’t looked at his photographs of Ben since the breakup, but it doesn’t matter. The details of each image are etched into his brain. The memory card is still zipped into his wallet; he hasn’t been able to bring himself to destroy it.

He sits up in bed and reaches for his laptop. It flickers blue as it boots up. AIM logs him in automatically and he sees that Ben is online. 

He stares at Ben’s screenname for a long time, trying to summon up the willpower to shut the laptop and go back to trying to sleep. Then, hating himself, he clicks on _Ky10_R3n_ and types _hey_.

Ben responds almost immediately. _Hey! What are you doing up this late?_

_I was doing so well, until now,_ Hux thinks.

_x75717: not much_

_x75717: can’t sleep_

_Ky10_R3n: me neither_

_Ky10_R3n: I slept like all afternoon bc I was trying to avoid my uncle_

_Ky10_R3n: are you at your dad’s place?_

_x75717: yeah_

_x75717: he’s out of town though_

_Ky10_R3n: oh awesome_

There’s a pause. Ben seems to be typing something, then deleting it. Hux watches the screen flicker.

_Ky10_R3n: you know I miss you_

_Ky10_R3n: all the time_

Hux squeezes his eyes shut, feeling slightly overwhelmed. He’s been wanting to hear that, so much, for so long - and yet. It makes him angry, too. He types _that’s because *you* wanted out_ , lets it sit there. Then he deletes it. He stares at the screen.

He wrestles with himself a moment longer. Then he writes: 

_x75717: you could come over_

_x75717: if you want_

Hux can hear his own heartbeat in his ears.

_Ky10_R3n: yeah for sure_

_Ky10_R3n: like right now?_

Hux finds himself smiling, reluctantly. He writes: _I am pretty busy at the moment but I could probably fit you into my schedule_

_Ky10_R3n: haha great, I’ll be right there_

_x75717: do you have my address? I don’t think you’ve ever been here_

_Ky10_R3n: Hux, I used to stalk you in high school, I know where you live_

_Ky10_R3n: I may or may not have walked slowly past your building a bunch of times when I was, like, 14-15_

_x75717: see you soon then, stalker_

_Ky10_R3n: ;-)_

Hux sags back against the headboard of his bed, half-thrilled, half-disgusted with himself. He gets up and starts towards the bathroom to take a shower, then decides it would be better to look as if he hasn’t put in any particular effort. He settles for brushing his teeth and pulling a plain white T-shirt on over his shorts. 

About forty minutes later, the intercom chimes. “Hey,” Ben says, unnecessarily, as Hux buzzes him in, “it’s me.” 

“Elevator’s on your right,” Hux says crisply, as if Ben were here to deliver takeout. 

When Hux opens the door, Ben is standing there, looking at him a little uncertainly. Then he grins. “No purple velvet robe?” he says. “I’m disappointed.”

“I wasn’t expecting to have an audience for it,” Hux responds. Ben looks - good, more or less the same as ever, in his leather jacket and tattered black jeans. There are smears of gold glitter around his eyes: Hux wonders if Ben added that for his benefit, or if this is how he usually looks at three in the morning. His face is flushed, maybe from the cold outside. A silver ankh dangles from one ear. “I see your taste in jewelry has only gotten worse since the last time I saw you.”

“What? Oh, yeah.” Ben touches his ear, a little self-consciously. “I know it’s super cliched. But somebody at school made it for me and I kind of like it.”

“I suppose it goes with your usual dollar-store vampire aesthetic,” Hux says, wondering who this “somebody” is, and also whether Ben deliberately wore the earring so that he could mention its origins and make Hux jealous. 

“Speaking of vampires,” Ben says, “are you going to invite me in?”

“I didn’t realize you needed an invitation,” Hux says, stepping aside.

“That’s how it works, with vampires,” Ben says, glancing at Hux flirtatiously over his shoulder as he walks past him into the living room. “If you want it, you have to ask for it.”

Hux frowns, wondering if this was a dig at him for being the first one to break down, the first one to ask for Ben to come back. Ben doesn’t notice. 

“Wow,” Ben says, sincerely, walking towards the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the room, “this place is incredible. Like being on a spaceship.”

Hux follows Ben towards the wall of glass. He’s seen this view from his father’s fortieth-floor apartment so often - usually while wishing that he were anywhere else - that he had forgotten that it is, in fact, beautiful. 

It’s a clear night. A few stars are visible through the city’s perpetual glow. The Upper West Side stretches out below their feet; Central Park is an island of darkness in Manhattan’s lacework of lights. 

“Wow,” Ben says again, looking at Hux. His dark eyes look enormous in the faint glow from the window. The cold of the air outside seems to radiate from the glass. Hux shivers and Ben reaches out to him, sliding an arm around his waist and pulling him close. Hux breathes in the crisp smell of his leather jacket, the familiar scent of his skin. “Hey,” Ben says, stroking Hux’s back. His warm fingers pause at the patch of bare skin where Hux’s t-shirt has ridden up over his hip, and he leans in to kiss Hux, gently. “I really missed you.”

Hux doesn’t respond, but he kisses him back, turning to press against his chest, feeling overwhelmed by the taste of his mouth. Ben’s jacket still carries the chill of the air outside. Hux’s nipples prickle against the leather, through his thin shirt. Ben’s skin is hot against his palms when he slides his hands under the layers of fabric. 

Ben is kissing his face now, his soft mouth moving over the corner of Hux’s lips, his cheeks, his closed eyes. Hux feels unmoored, as if everything he’s been clinging to since the break-up is dissolving in his grasp. 

“Do you mind if we go to your room?” Ben asks suddenly. “I feel like your dad’s going to walk in on us any minute.”

“He’s on a plane to the Bahamas, at least in theory,” Hux says, “but sure. It’ll give you a chance to complain about how my room has no personality.” 

Ben laughs. “I wouldn’t say _no_ personality,” he says as they walk into Hux’s bedroom. He looks around at the white walls - mostly blank except for a large framed map of the Gettysburg battlefield - and at the neat rows of books on the shelves. “I guess you’re kind of going for a ‘doctor’s waiting room, but with more military history’ kind of aesthetic.”

“I figured you’d say something like that.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Ben says, wrestling Hux onto the bed, straddling his hips and pinning his arms above his head. His boots dangle off the edge of the bed. “I could go for the whole doctor’s office thing. You want me to examine me? Make me bend over and spread my legs for you?”

“Not right now,” Hux says, squirming under Ben, enjoying the weight of him, the feeling of being held down. They’re both getting hard; he can see the bulge in Ben’s jeans. “Right now I want you to get your shoes off my bed and then I want you to fuck me.”

Ben laughs, hopping up to tug off his boots. “I didn’t let my shoes touch your bed,” he protests. “I know you better than that.” He drops his jacket onto the floor with the boots and steps towards Hux. Hux fends him off, flexing his bare foot against Ben’s denim-covered thigh.

“Take the rest of it off too,” Hux demands, sitting up on his elbows. “I want to watch you.”

“Yeah?” Ben grins, pulling his shirt over his head. “You missed that? Making me strip for you?”

“Mmm,” Hux responds, his eyes on the faint trail of hair that leads down into Ben’s jeans, on his big hands unbuttoning his fly. “Go slower.”

“You’re so fucking hot,” Ben groans, sliding his jeans slowly down over his hips. The thin cotton of his black briefs stretches tautly over his erection. “I forgot how much you like ordering me around.”

“How much _you_ like it when I order you around, you mean.”

“Maybe I do,” Ben says, stepping out of his jeans. He pulls his cock out of his briefs and strokes himself lingeringly; he’s fully hard now, his cock standing up thick and red against his abs. “You like that?”

“Not bad,” Hux says, hooking his foot behind Ben’s knee. “You can come back over here and fuck me now.”

“In a minute,” Ben says, kicking off his underwear and collapsing on top of Hux with a groan. His bare skin feels startlingly hot in the cold room, like the body of someone with a fever. Hux wraps his legs around Ben’s waist, grinding up against him eagerly, as Ben sucks gently at the sensitive spot just below his jaw. “I want to take my time with you... I missed the way you taste.”

“Don’t take too much time,” Hux says, already panting, tugging at Ben’s hair. He tilts his head to mouth at Ben’s ear, running the point of his tongue over the metal studs Ben is wearing, nibbling at the lobe. Ben shudders against him. His hands are under Hux’s shirt now, pushing it up over his chest. 

“Maybe I should tie you up,” Ben says hoarsely. He yanks Hux’s t-shirt over his head, leaves it tangled around Hux’s wrists, holding them in one hand. “Like this. If you can’t be patient enough to let me touch you like I want to touch you.”

Hux squirms under him. It seems pointless to deny what this is doing to him, how much he wants to be held down and overwhelmed. “Maybe you should.”

Ben looks at him avidly. “Yeah? You want that?”

Hux nods, his face hot. “My belts are in that drawer there. If you want to use something like that.”

“Fuck, yeah,” Ben says, eagerly, letting go of Hux and getting up to poke through the drawer. “I didn’t think you’d be into that.”

Hux shrugs, still embarrassed. Something else occurs to him. “By the way - I don’t have real lube here. Did you - “

“Don’t worry, I brought some.” Ben laughs. “I didn’t actually think you invited me over here at three in the morning because you wanted me to critique the way your room is decorated.” He comes back to the bed holding a soft cloth belt printed with tiny green whales. “This ridiculous belt seems like an appropriately preppy way to tie up someone like you.”

Hux rolls his eyes. “I also didn’t invite you over here so that you could make fun of my clothes. Are you ever going to actually fuck me?”

“Making fun of your clothes is just one of the many services I provide,” Ben says, wrapping the belt around Hux’s wrists and threading it through the headboard. He kisses the inside of Hux’s elbow, the slight stubble on his face rasping at the thin skin. He tugs off Hux’s shorts and kneels over him, locking Hux’s thighs between his own. “You like that? Being tied up and helpless, so I can do anything I want to you?”

Hux’s cock throbs. “Just get on with it,” he snaps.

“Can’t wait?” Ben asks, smirking. “Well, too bad. Now I get to torture you for as long as I want.”

Hux half-regrets agreeing to this set-up when he finds out just _how_ slowly Ben plans to go: Ben’s mouth moves lingeringly over Hux’s collarbone, his nipples, the points of his hipbones, his inner thigh, the back of his knee. He sucks gently at Hux’s balls, rubbing the sensitive spot behind them with his fingers, until Hux is squirming frantically on the bed, his aching cock dripping freely onto his stomach. Ben laps it up, licking first his abs and then the head of Hux’s cock clean in broad strokes of his tongue. Then he pulls away as Hux tries to thrust up into his mouth.

“Will you - I need - oh, _fuck_ ,” Hux groans, dissolving into incoherence as Ben pushes Hux’s thighs toward his shoulders and slides his mouth lower. For a long, drawn-out moment, he teases Hux with just the tip of his tongue, lightly tracing the rim of his hole. Then he licks into him until Hux is nearly whimpering at the melting heat of it. 

Eventually Ben lets go of him and reaches for his jacket: he has a tube of lube and a condom in the pocket. Hux winces slightly at the condom - which, obviously, yes, they’re not together anymore, Ben should wear one, but how many others have there been - 

Hux’s train of thought is interrupted by the feeling of Ben’s thick, lubed-up finger sliding inside him, crooking slightly, and - “Ah, _fuck_.”

“See? I haven’t forgotten how you like it,” Ben says, sounding smug and a little breathless, looking up at Hux from between his spread legs. His face is flushed. He’s moving his finger now, rubbing little circles over exactly the right spot, making Hux writhe. 

“Ah - shit - I need you to touch me - “

“I am touching you,” Ben says, looking up at him innocently. “What more do you want?”

“Please - please touch my cock - please suck me - “

“That’s what you want now?” Ben asks. “I seem to remember that you wanted to get fucked.” He runs his tongue up the shaft of Hux’s cock, making him arch off the bed. “Mhmm, you taste so good. But I’m pretty sure you’re going to come as soon as I start sucking you.”

“Please - please - “

“Sorry,” Ben says, grinning, slowly sliding his finger out. “I want you to come on my cock. You want that? Tell me you want it.”

“ _Yes_ \- you know I do - fucking _do_ it already - “

Ben is already getting up onto his knees and ripping open the condom packet, rolling it down over his cock. He squeezes more lube onto the condom, stroking himself roughly. Hux spreads his legs wider, pushing his hips up pleadingly. Ben grabs Hux’s thighs and pulls them over his shoulders, sliding slowly - too slowly - into him. “ _Fuck_ ,” Ben gasps, squeezing his eyes shut, his wet, swollen lips parting. “You’re so fucking tight - I missed this so much - “

Hux breathes out, trying to relax around the thickness of him, then makes an embarrassingly high-pitched sound as the burn of Ben’s cock inside him goes from _too much_ to _please, more, now._

“You like that?” Ben asks. “You want it?” He’s thrusting into Hux now, punching more embarrassing sounds out of him with every movement of his hips. He pauses with just the tip of his cock still inside Hux. “Say it. Say you want me.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Hux gasps, “I want you - I always want you - “

Ben slams back into him, again and again, his face ecstatic. He reaches around to stroke Hux’s cock with his lubed-up hand, pumping it once - twice - and Hux is gone, clenching down around Ben’s cock with a groan as he comes all over his chest and stomach. 

Ben pulls out and strips off the condom, throwing it in the direction of the trash can. His big hand moves frantically on his cock. He’s gasping for air, making the little high-pitched sounds in his throat that mean he’s about to come. “Hux,” he chokes out, “can I come on you - please say yes - “

“Do it,” Hux says, still breathing hard. “I want to watch you come all over me.”

Ben whimpers at that, biting his lip as his back arches. His come sprays warm across Hux’s ribcage as he shudders through his orgasm. Then he flops down next to Hux with a sigh, curling against his side, nuzzling at his ear. “Fuck, that was amazing.”

Hux rattles his still-bound wrists. “Um. Aren’t you going to untie me?” 

Ben laughs, leaning up on his elbow, looking Hux over. “But you look so hot like this,” he says. “Tied up, naked, and covered in come is a really great look for you, it turns out.”

“ _Ben_ ,” Hux says, warningly.

“Okay, okay.” Ben unties him, then tries to pull Hux back against his chest. 

Hux wriggles away. “I’m a mess. I need to go clean up.”

“I like you a mess,” Ben says, but he doesn’t try to stop Hux from escaping to the bathroom. 

Hux looks at himself ruefully in the mirror. The streaks of come across his torso are starting to dry and crust over; some is caught in his hair. Bits of Ben’s gold makeup glitter in unexpected places. There are pink suck marks on his chest and in the hollow of his hip. _So much for trying to be more disciplined_ , he thinks.

When he goes back to the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, Ben has pulled his jeans back on and is standing shirtless by the bed. He’s holding the framed picture from Hux’s nightstand. “Is this your mother?” Ben asks, looking up. “I just realized, I’ve never seen a picture of her before.”

“I don’t have many,” Hux says. “Some cousin of hers sent me that one. After we moved here.”

“Your father didn’t keep any?”

“No.” 

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, looking at him sympathetically. “You know, if you want, you can talk to me about her. I’ll shut up for once and listen, I promise.”

Hux shrugs. He doesn’t even know what he would say about her. His clearest memory of his mother is of watching her getting dressed to go to work - putting on a black skirt suit, pinning her long fair hair back. Hux remembers the scratchy polyester texture of that suit jacket pressing against his face when she hugged him. And he remembers that she would wear tennis shoes with the suit while she walked to the train. In Manhattan, whenever he sees a woman walking to work in a suit and sneakers, it reminds him, painfully, of her.

“She looks like she would have been really fun to hang out with,” Ben says, looking down at the photograph. In the picture, Hux’s mother is a teenager, wearing a short skirt and silver platform boots. She’s laughing; her face is slightly blurred. “When was this taken? In the 70s?”

“Someone wrote ‘September 1975,’ on the back,” Hux says. “She would have been fifteen.” When he was a child, he had liked that his mother looked so young in the picture, like an older sister. Now it just strikes him as sad. 

“I bet she was a Bowie fan,” Ben says. “I love these boots she’s wearing.”

Hux shrugs again, not wanting to admit that he has no idea.

“Well,” Ben says, setting down the picture and looking hopefully at Hux, “I guess I should go. Unless you want me to stay?”

Hux lifts his chin, feeling that he has compromised his dignity quite sufficiently for one evening; he has no intention of begging Ben to stay. “That would probably be best,” he says coolly. “In case my father comes back unexpectedly.”

“Sure, yeah,” Ben says, turning his face away. He pulls on his shirt and reaches for his jacket and boots. For a moment he stands awkwardly in the doorway holding them, looking at Hux as if there is something more he wants to say. “Well - see you around.”

“See you,” Hux says, looking away, towards his rumpled bed. The glitter Ben had been wearing around his eyes has gotten everywhere; where Ben’s face had been, Hux’s sheets are now flecked with shimmering gold. 

Behind him, he hears the front door open and close as Ben leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:
> 
> \- Hux goes to a frat party where there’s underage drinking, although he doesn’t participate himself. He also meets Matt there and they have moderately unsafe, somewhat awkward sex. Matt is a virgin. Hux isn’t especially kind or considerate to him, although he doesn’t go out of his way to be awful.  
> \- Matt makes some disparaging comments about his hometown in upstate NY. My apologies to anyone who’s from there - I have family there and I do not share Matt’s opinion of it.  
> \- Hux also has sex with Ben again in this chapter and it is Somewhat Angsty. Also, Hux gets tied up.  
> \- Hux wonders if Ben has been sleeping with other people since the breakup and he feels jealous and annoyed about it.  
> \- There are some additional references to Hux’s internalized homophobia.  
> \- I think that’s about it for potentially triggering content, but please let me know if there’s anything else I should have tagged. 
> 
> Additional note: I quoted my college literature professor’s explanation of A.E. Housman’s poem “Astronomy,” but was unable to verify the historical details he mentioned. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always! Love you guys.


End file.
